Month: July 2016

I think as a species, we have been conditioned to believe that learning a new task or becoming proficient at a skill should be difficult. This idea is very evident at every turn when I watch golf videos or listen to golf professionals explain how to swing a golf club “properly.”

It seems to me that almost everyone has a different idea on how this should be accomplished, which just adds to the confusion and slows down the learning process. Any time there is conflicting information, the brain has trouble filtering out what it is supposed to tell the body, and frustration sets in.

Appreciating the Uniqueness of Golf Swings

Let’s think about something: Old Tom Morris used to get a featherie ball around the Old Course in St. Andrews in the 1800s in very few strokes without the aid of a swing coach, fitness coach, or nutrition coach. I love watching the old Champions Tour videos with Chi Chi, Lee Trevino, Byron Nelson, Arnold Palmer, and a host of others – every swing is different, and they getting the job done with not a swing coach in sight.

With all the differences in the golf swings of the early 20th century, the similarities were glaring. Sure, every player had impeccable balance, a specific sequence to their swing and understood how to use geometry to control their ball flight – other than that, each and every swing was very unique.

The Modern Golf Swing Approach

It seems that today, we are trying to force a new belief system of perfection in a golf swing, with specific angles and positions that must be hit in order to produce desired results. While that may be great if your paycheck depends on your golf score and you have 20 hours a week to devote to practice, but for the rest of us, it spells disaster.

Having too many swing thoughts or conflicting information makes it impossible for the weekend golfer to improve or enjoy the game to its fullest. The golf swing is an athletic move, and while everybody has different physical limitations, every golf swing is also a little different. The Great Golf teacher Harvey Penick once said, “Beware of the golfer with a bad grip and a bad swing, for he has learned how to score with the swing he has.” I believe amateur golfers world wide should take heed in this comment, your swing doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be yours, and you have to own it!

Students and clients of Center of Gravity Golf have told me a thousand times: “This is too easy, I finally get it!” The reason is simple, I let them use what they have naturally and teach them the proper sequence to swing the club, and it never fails. Once a student discovers his way of getting it done, it never leaves him.

The principles are easy, the boss fingers control the clubface, the feet control the ground, the center of gravity triangle controls the geometry of ball flight and consistency, and the two power sources are the “engine” and the “piston” – put them in the proper sequence and you have a golf swing you can rely on.

So is Center of Gravity Golf too easy? I think it’s just easy enough, but I’ll let you be the judge. A very smart man once said, “This is so easy…it just might work”, and it does!